GM CAN HURT THE BIRDS AND BEES: STUDY

The world's biggest study on genetically-modified (GM) crops has found they can have a harmful effect on insects, birds and other plants, fuelling debate over whether farmers should be allowed to cultivate such crops.

The last trial in a four-year UK study, published in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings B this week, compared a GM oilseed rape, or canola, to its conventional non-GM equivalent.

It found there were fewer seeds, bees and butterflies in GM fields.

Scientists behind the British study stress the differences aren't because the crop is genetically modified but because of the way pesticides are used.

The study "demonstrates the importance of the effects of herbicide management on wildlife in fields and adjacent areas," says one of the report's authors Dr David Bohan of the Division of Plant and Invertebrate Research, Rothamsted Research.

The canola, like many other GM crops, was designed to resist herbicide so that farmers could use a range of powerful weed killers, but plants in and around the GM crop didn't have the same immunity.

In the GM crop fields there were also fewer broad-leaved weeds, which are considered important because they feed insects and birds.

The results were the last of four multi-million dollar farm-scale trials overseen by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs Scientific Steering Committee.

Environment groups have hailed the findings as proof that GM crops are harmful to the environment and should be banned in Britain, where they are unpopular with the public.

"These results are yet another major blow to the biotech industry," says Clare Oxborrow, the GM campaigner for Friends of the Earth.

A protester in Spain which has 32,000 hectares set aside for GM maize (Image: Reuters/HO-Greenpeace/Pedro Armestre)

Australian response

Jeremy Tager, a campaigner for Greenpeace Australia, says the results show genetically modified crops can cause serious environmental problems that haven't been investigated in Australia.

"Cropping areas are not deserts in Australia, any more than they are in Britain," he says.

"There has been no assessment in Austraila of the impacts of GM canola farming on native wildlife, beneficial insects, native plants or the ecology of Australia's agricultural areas."

A spokeswoman for Australia's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator says the British study has no relevance to Australia.

"What's happening in the UK is definitely not comparable to what's happening in Australia," she says.

"Our weeds are entirely different and our weedy population can deal with (GM) canola without any detriment to our environment."

In two of the other three British trials - involving oilseed rape, beet and maize - whose results were published in October 2003, conventional crops were also found to be better for many groups of wildlife.

Last year, the only firm to win approval to grow a GM crop in Britain, Germany's Bayer CropScience, abandoned field testing in Britain. It also withdrew any outstanding applications awaiting government approval to sell seeds.

In Europe, the growing of GM crops on a significant scale takes place only in Spain, which has 32,000 hectares set aside for GM maize.

The results of Britain's last farm-scale GM crop trial will now be passed on to the government's statutory advisory body - the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE).

© ABC

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